


Trial

by anactoria



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Community: spn_summergen, Episode: s09e16 Blade Runners, First Blade, Gen, Mind Control
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-01
Updated: 2014-11-01
Packaged: 2018-02-23 12:59:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2548367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anactoria/pseuds/anactoria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During 9.16 ("Blade Runners"), Sam doesn't get back into Magnus's house in time. Magnus disappears with Dean, for whom he has his own plans.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trial

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JJ1564](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JJ1564/gifts).



> Written for [jj1564](http://jj1564.livejournal.com) for the following (awesome!) prompt: _Set in/around 9.16 'Blade Runners' - Cuthbert Sinclair (Magnus) kidnaps Dean and keeps him in his hidden lair. He trains him to use the Blade, feeding him a succession of creatures until Dean is the perfect killing machine. Sam and Cas have to work out how to save Dean from Magnus and then how to bring Dean back._
> 
> Many thanks to [septembers_coda](http://septembers_coda.livejournal.com) for the beta, and to the SummerGen mods for running such as awesome challenge!

_[#1: Demon]_

_Subject has been difficult to settle in. Obedient enough; they always are, not that they have much choice in the matter. But when the spell wears off—well, he just won’t shut up. Insists that he’ll ‘kick my ass real good’ when he escapes; calls out for ‘Sammy’ (the brother) and somebody called ‘Cass’ (a girlfriend, maybe?)._

_Subject refuses to listen to reason. Sanctuary isn’t much of an incentive for a hunter, I suppose._

_No matter. That isn’t really what he’s here for, after all._

_The Blade helps. The protests go quiet, when the subject senses it nearby. The distractions fall away. The effect is fascinating. I could write papers on this, if I had the time. But I have bigger plans for this one._

_Subject evinced no surprise at being faced with a demon; dispatched it quickly and efficiently._

_As expected. Not a very satisfying conclusion, really. The creature’s been here for decades; it gave up all pretence at humanity years ago. Its eyes are always black. No hunter would have hesitated to destroy it._

_Something less obvious, next time._

_Subject showed some confusion after dealing with it. Increasing attachment to First Blade, despite obvious associated physical discomfort. Willpower spell was required to induce subject to give it up. Not a problem, though the subject’s cooperation still needs work._

_After the spell wore off, I was treated to some choice insults in among the insistences that ‘you’ll never get away with this crap’ and ‘I’ll kill you myself’. He’s a walking crib sheet in twenty-first-century cursing. Still not sure what being an ‘assclown’ entails, but apparently I’m very good at it._

_The defiance is the most entertaining part, sometimes. I’ll miss it._

\----

“‘And entrance would only be gained by a spell,’” Sam reads. He exhales, dares to hope that perhaps he’s a step closer to rescuing his brother.

His heart sinks as he turns the page. Nothing. 

Apparently the Men of Letters didn’t think Sinclair’s spell worth hanging onto—or it’s been filed away in some other, obscure corner of the bunker, according to a system that Sam still doesn’t understand completely. 

He thinks hard. Every storage room is warded, so it’s not even like he can have Crowley make himself useful by searching the place. Though maybe Sam should send him anyway, because right now he’s hovering in Sam’s personal space like a bad smell, humming something that sounds suspiciously like ‘Blue Moon’. 

Anyway, it wouldn’t work, and there’s nobody else within a reasonable distance of the bunker who Sam can call. Wherever the spell is, it’s no use to him or Dean right now. 

He lets out a sigh.

Which is immediately followed by Crowley’s face looming into view over the folder he’s holding. “Anytime you want to admit you need my help, Moose.”

Sam keeps right on staring at the folder. Not that ignoring Crowley has ever encouraged him to go away, but Sam can hope. 

Apparently undeterred, Crowley shrugs. “Have it your way,” he says. Then, conversational: “Though why you’re taking your little lovers’ tiff out on _me_ …” He waves a hand, leaving the sentence, and a half-dozen insinuations that Sam has neither the time nor the patience to deal with right now, hanging in the air.

“Crowley,” Sam tells him, for probably the hundredth time this evening, “Shut up.”

He doesn’t. “Doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to see that there’s trouble in—well. Paradise hardly seems like the word these days, does it?”

“Don’t act like you know us,” Sam says, keeping his eyes fixed in the page. He’s honestly considering an exorcism just to wipe the knowing smirk off of Crowley’s face, but then something in the file on Sinclair catches his eye.

_…propose making our headquarters invisible to men, demons, and monsters of all kinds, by means of…_

Men, demons, and monsters. There’s something missing from that list. 

Sam sets down the file and closes his eyes. “Cas,” he says aloud. “If you can hear this, call me. I could— _Dean_ could use your help. He’s in trouble.”

When he opens his eyes again, Crowley’s smug expression has given way to a pissy one, which is actually a blessed relief.

“You don’t expect me to hang around if _he’s_ invited?” Crowley says.

Sam raises his eyes to the heavens. “What is this, third grade?” he says, wishing—not for the first time—that there was somebody up there he could pray to to give him strength. Just sitting here, not having anything he can do to get to Dean, is already killing him. Crowley wants to complain, he can complain to himself.

Crowley mutters something under his breath, but settles himself against the hood of the Impala, falling mercifully silent. 

They wait.

\----

_[#2: Vampire]_

_Not much of a step up, I suppose, but vampires are disposable. Easy to get hold of. This one was trickier than most, but that’s not saying much. The hunger makes them easy to manipulate, overrides reason._

_Its physical appearance was that of a young girl, ten or eleven years old. In the wild, the vampire relied on it to find victims, retracting its fangs and playing at being a lost child. It gave up trying that kind of thing here a long time ago—but a fresh face brought it out again, as I’d suspected._

_I kept the lights in the room low. Darkness makes the redness of the eyes easier to overlook, the mask of humanity easier to believe. Subject was initially insistent on knowing what she was before dispatching her; demanded silver, holy water._

_The First Blade changed all that. Subject’s whole demeanour changes when it’s brought into the room. He looks uneasy, but it’s irresistible, like a new center of gravity._

_Physical discomfort due to Blade’s interaction with Mark of Cain appears to have increased, but subject is increasingly reluctant to give up the Blade. Acts as if threatened when asked, as if I’d just tried to cut off a limb._

_Less confusion in the wake of the kill this time. Subject seemed aware of where he was, just stared at the head on the floor for a long time before remembering he was being watched._

_The willpower spell is still effective, at least. I’ll use it more frequently from now on. Need to render the subject more tractable, if he’s to be useful._

_He’s quieter, but still insults me at intervals. Still claims to believe his brother will come for him, though how he expects a single hunter to get through my defences without being invited, I have no idea. Subject refuses to respond to counterarguments. Seems to be more an article of faith than a reasoned belief._

_Very human; refreshing to see, after so long sequestered here with my exhibits._

_But it needs to be gotten rid of. Shouldn’t take much. That kind of insistence, that refusal to test faith—it’s overcompensation. There’s already doubt there. A little magical influence should have it blossoming in no time. This will be a good opportunity to test out the new formula I’ve been working on. We’ll get rid of those pesky outside loyalties soon enough._

_I’ll miss our little back-and-forths. But so volatile a weapon can’t be left uncontrolled, can’t be allowed to think it has a mind of its own._

\----

Cas call backs a couple hours later.

“I’m sorry I took so long,” he says, an edge of distress in his voice. “I was close to being discovered. I had to stay quiet. I couldn’t have helped you if—”

“It’s fine,” Sam assures him. Honestly, he’s glad just to hear a familiar voice that doesn’t belong to the King of Making-Sam’s-Life-Hell. “I—really, I don’t think Dean’s in too much danger. The guy wasn’t gonna hurt him, I don’t think.”

“Then what—” Cas begins.

“I don’t know,” Sam says. “But I doubt it’s anything good. And he’s trapped, and we need to get him out of there.”

“Of course.” The relief in Cas’s tone is tempered by urgency. “What can I do?”

\----

“…So,” Sam finishes, “there are a couple references to angels in the Men of Letters files, but nothing that makes me think they’d feel the need to ward against you guys. You might be able to see it, even if the rest of us can’t. What do you think?”

“It’s possible,” Cas agrees. “All the angels on Earth were invisible at the time Sinclair wrote his spell. We were likely just a theory to the Men of Letters.” He pauses. “But Sam—I’m in Colorado. I won’t be able to reach you before tomorrow. If you have another way to find Dean—”

“I don’t,” Sam says, and feels his own helplessness again like a stone in his gut. “But like I said, I don’t think Magnus meant to kill him. More like—well, I don’t know, but that zoo, all those creatures? If I had to guess, I’d say Magnus wanted to study him.”

“Or use him,” Cas suggests, and yeah, he sounds worried. Fuck. “What you found out about Magnus from the files suggests he wouldn’t be averse to experimenting on people.”

“Honestly,” Sam says, “I’ve been trying not to think about that.” 

If he does, this inactivity will kill him, his own helplessness will kill him. But it’s been said, now. It’s real, now, and there are pictures he can’t manage to banish from his brain even after he hangs up the phone. 

In the end he picks up the file on Sinclair again, leafs through the papers from the beginning for what feels like the hundredth time. Even doing something pointless has to be better than doing nothing.

When the battery in Sam’s flashlight gives out and he can’t read anymore, he bundles up his jacket for a pillow and wedges himself into the backseat of the Impala.

Through the open window, Crowley raises an eyebrow at him. “No flea-ridden motel? Thought you boys were at least slightly domesticated.”

Sam doesn’t grace him with an answer. He isn’t leaving this spot, not for a second. Not while there’s a chance Dean’s standing right where he is now. Not while there’s a chance that he’s suffering.

\----

_[#3: Werewolf]_

_This one’s an unusual case. Came here willingly, believing isolation from human society to be the solution to its little problem. Hasn’t touched human meat in decades; happy enough with what I provide. Agreed to participate in any experiments I proposed in return for its safety—but there isn’t much that’s new to find out, where lycanthropy’s concerned. Outlived its usefulness to me long ago._

_Genuinely shocked to find itself—what were the words it used? ‘Sold out’ to a hunter? Something like that. Exactly what I needed._

_Tried to employ reason, as expected, spilling the whole sad tale—infected by its own dear sister, saw her become a cold-blooded killer, dispatched her itself and promised to do better, do no harm, whatever the personal cost. Subject showed more signs of susceptibility than I expected. Didn’t appear to trust the werewolf’s story, kept one eye on the door the whole time, but didn’t immediately dismiss it, either. Mentioned somebody called ‘Kate’._

_Subject seems increasingly sensitive to the presence of the Blade. Turned towards it the moment I introduced it into the room, like a hound scenting blood. All interest in the werewolf’s sob-story vanished abruptly._

_Confusion after using it seems to be lessening. There was clarity there, this time. Only one question: what to kill next?_

_Subject hasn’t stopped insulting me; still displays bouts of rage; paces the room looking for a way out._

_Hasn’t mentioned his brother lately, however. Looks up a little less eagerly each time I open the door._

\----

Cas shakes his head, eyes downcast.

“I can’t see anything,” he says. “I can’t—sense anything, either. Any kind of power.” His shoulders slump. “I don’t think the house is here anymore.” He looks as defeated as Sam feels. 

The couple hours’ sleep he managed to grab in the backseat of the Impala have done nothing to lessen his exhaustion. He’s all gritty eyes and brain fog, a painful crick in his back and a sick feeling in his stomach that’s partly from not having eaten since yesterday morning, but mostly from dread. 

He doesn’t remember much about last night’s dreams, just bitty scraps, but Dean was in all of them. Or something that looked like Dean was, anyway, looking at him vacant-eyed from under glass.

But he can push it away, now they have a concrete goal. Track down Sinclair. It’s something to hold on to, and Sam grips it tight. 

Times like this, narrowing his focus is the only thing that keeps him going, the only thing that lets him be of any use to anybody. He takes a deep breath, pulls himself upright.

“I’m gonna head back to the bunker,” he decides. He swallows down the hollow _wrongness_ that echoes in him at the thought of leaving, because it still feels like abandoning Dean, even if he isn’t here anymore. “If there’s any information that’s gonna help us, that’s where it is.” He looks at Cas. “Any ideas?”

Cas scrunches up his face, that expression that looks like he’s just smelled something funky but actually means he’s thinking (though, Crowley is still hanging around, so, who knows). 

“There’s a kind of—echo, I think you’d call it,” he begins, carefully. “It’s hard to explain. When the walls between worlds are ruptured, the place where the break was is—weakened, for a time. The energies are different. It’s almost like hearing the other place on the other side of it. It tells us the walls are thin.”

“And you can feel that here?”

Cas nods, and Sam frowns to himself, an idea starting to take shape.

“You know,” he says, “That kind of does make sense. If ‘invisibility spell’ was a simplification. I mean, it’s not like we were walking around here bumping into his furniture, you know? If he actually shifted the whole house into a—a pocket dimension or something?”

“It’s possible.” The lines of concern on Cas’s face deepen. “It would require powerful magic.”

“Yeah, well, this guy was rocking some pretty serious mojo.”

“It’s easier to open a portal where the fabric has already been ruptured,” Cas goes on. “I know of places like this—but that could be just a fraction of the total. Sam, is that something the Men of Letters would’ve kept records of?”

“Could be,” Sam says. “Guess the only thing to do is start looking.”

“I have some contacts among the penitents,” Cas adds. “I’ll ask for their help.”

“Good. Call me if you find anything.” Sam reaches into his pocket for the car keys. He’s already itching to get on the road back to the bunker, to a concrete problem he can actually work on. 

One that doesn’t look like his brother, staring at him without a hint of recognition.

“Sam.” Cas stops him in his tracks as he makes for the Impala. “There is one more thing.” 

He turns back.

“If the house really is in another world, another dimension—time can work differently there.”

Sam blinks back at him, dread shifting to take up a little more space inside of him. “So we have no idea how long it’s been for Dean. What Sinclair could’ve done to him while we’ve been waiting.”

Cas looks at him. “I just thought you should know.”

\----

_[#4: Shapeshifter]_

_Subject’s periods of lucidity—if I can call them that—are decreasing. Desperation for the Blade manifests itself rather like drug withdrawal. Apparent hallucinations, anxiety. Talks to himself, though it’s mostly incoherent. Other times, subject appears completely blank, a remnant of the willpower spell._

_I listened, last night, but could only make out a couple of phrases. “I already know,” and “You don’t have to tell me what I—” and, once, “I’m sorry.”_

_Who was he talking to? The Blade? The brother he no longer seems so certain will come for him? Himself?_

_Fascinating—though, I do miss the fiery ones when they give in. They make things a little less lonely here.  
Shifter manifested itself in the shape of subject’s brother. (A hair swiped from the back of his jacket provided the genetic material; there’s something to be said for a front room full of distractions.) The mannerisms were hardly satisfactory, the voice a little off, but subject’s reaction was still… illuminating. _

_Even before the Blade was introduced into the room, subject appeared sceptical, shaking his head as the creature entered. Didn’t ask questions; just said, “I know it’s not you, Sammy. Why the hell would it be you?”_

_All that doubt—really, it hardly needed my help to coax it into life._

_Subject said one more thing, afterwards. “They always look like you.”_

_He sounded tired._

\----

Sam manages to stay on the road a few hours before a food-and-caffeine stop becomes an urgent necessity. He keeps the file on Sinclair on the shotgun seat next to him, glancing sideways at it every couple miles, like its proximity will cause some urgent revelation to jump out at him and change the whole game. It’s dumb, superstitious, but the feeling has gotten its claws into him and won’t let go.

He pulls over at a gas station, grabs the file and leafs through it one last time, before his sore eyes and growling stomach drive him out of the car. He notices nothing new.

It’s not like he’s in the gas station for long—just enough time to pick up a sandwich, coffee, a bottle of aspirin—but when he comes back out, the front right door of the Impala is hanging open.

Sam’s stomach drops. 

He breaks into a run, splashing hot coffee down his arm and ignoring the burn of it, saying, _no, fuck, no_ under his breath. He stumbles to a halt beside the car. 

But he’s too late. The file is gone.

Whoever took it, they only grabbed the file off of the front seat. The demon-warded trunk is still closed. Either this was a precision strike, the thieves knowing exactly what they wanted—or they were demons.

If Crowley wanted to steal the file, he had plenty of opportunity last night, while Sam was curled up in the backseat waiting for Cas to show. Which leaves one probability.

Well, shit.

Sam calls Cas, who makes no attempt at reassuring him, just promises solemnly to redouble his efforts. Then—with more than a hint of trepidation—he finds the number that Dean programmed into his cell a couple weeks back under ‘King of Douches’. (Sam still isn’t sure he wasn’t overcompensating for the fact that he and Crowley seem to be best buddies these days.)

“Well,” Crowley says, after Sam relays the news. “There’s a turn-up for the books.”

Sam restrains himself from throwing his cellphone across the parking lot. Barely. 

“Exactly what part of this shitty situation is a _turn-up for the books_?” he asks, icily. “My brother’s been kidnapped by a criminally-insane wizard, who for all we know wants to stick him in a lab and electro-shock his brain, there’s an even-more-criminally-insane demon looking for him, we’ve gotten nowhere, and now she has our intel.”

“Maybe it’s escaped your notice, Moose,” Crowley says, adopting the tone of someone talking to a none-too-smart six-year-old, “but we’re not exactly rich in time or manpower at the mo.”

“Thanks,” Sam snaps. “I’d forgotten that.”

“And Abaddon _is_ ,” Crowley goes on, ignoring him. “So I say, we let her minions do the grunt work. I’ll keep an eye on them. Oh, you and the flying plank can carry on with your Inspector Lestrade bit if it makes you feel useful, and I’ll let you know when it looks like the ginger bint is getting close.”

“Worth a shot,” Sam has to admit, with a sigh. They can’t afford to let Abaddon waltz on out in front of them with a head-start in the hunt. Doesn’t mean he’s gonna sit around and do nothing, though.

He hangs up, and gets back on the road.

\----

_[Final: Siren]_

_Subject is quieter now. Doesn’t appear to sleep; speaks less. No more talking to the absent brother or the mysterious ‘Cass’. It’s going well._

_This took a little orchestrating. But sirens are overconfident creatures, and this one seemed sure it could trick its way out of any kind of danger. I even let it take a look at the subject first, before sending it in._

_It took on the form of the brother. Still the subject’s main weakness, then. I had wondered, after last time._

_Still, hunters have plenty of experience when it comes to identity theft. It takes more than a simple physical likeness, and the subject had the shifter pegged as something other than human from the off. That’s where sirens have the advantage. They have access to memory, desire. They know what the victim wants to see, what’s realistic enough to convince._

_This one burst into the room, sudden, kicking down the door. It tweaked the image a little; walked in dishevelled and sweaty, hair in its eyes, a bruise here, a smear of blood there. Gave a perfect impression of whole-body-sagging relief when it laid eyes on the subject._

_Who almost bought it. Sirens are good—gotta hand it to the little monster. Subject approached it slow, careful._

_“Sammy?” he said, hopeful somewhere in there, behind the narrowed eyes. Wanting to believe. “You came?”_

_“Yeah, Dean.” And there was the first hint of a smile, breaking through the tension. “Of course I did.”_

_“Didn’t think you would.” Dubious, but leaning._

_The siren stopped there, looked at the subject. Gave a facial twitch that seemed designed to convey the difficult decision to say something long-buried._

_“I didn’t mean it, you know,” it said, at length. “What I said, before. I couldn’t leave you here.”_

_Subject nodded, seemed to relax a little; a quiet exhalation, inches from giving in to the illusion._

_“Come on. Let’s go.” The siren made for the door, turning his back to the subject._

_That was what broke the spell, oddly enough. Subject froze on the spot, disappointment visibly giving way to rage, the siren’s spell to that of the Blade._

_“You_ trust _me?” he said. “You don’t_ trust _me. You know better’n that.”_

_The Blade took hold, then. I’ve seen no sign of lucidity on the part of the subject since._

_These controlled trials have reached the end of their usefulness, I think. Time for a field test._

\----

Sam’s in the library when he gets the call. It’s been a long night, and he gave up on trying to get any sleep hours ago. Not that he’s been doing much of that lately. Mostly he grabs intermittent naps on the library couch, waking with a twinge in his back and a thumping headache.

Still, he can deal with a little discomfort. It’s the dreams that get to him.

Dean is always in them. Sometimes he’s alive, more animated than Sam has seen him in years. A whirling dervish at the centre of a battlefield, trailing blood and black smoke, the expression on his face inhuman. Other times, he’s still as a statue, standing in a room that echoes with decades of silence and dust, looking past Sam with glassy, unrecognising eyes. Sam isn’t sure which he finds more disturbing.

He’s been staring at the same page for Christ-knows-how-long, the words having long since turned into meaningless squiggles, when the sound of his ringtone makes him start in his chair. He picks up his cell and looks at the caller ID. Scowls at it for a moment, like maybe if he just stares hard enough the display will change, and it’ll be Cas calling him with a lead and he won’t have to deal with Crowley.

Then he picks up. “Yeah?” he says, wearily.

“Well, keep your knickers on, no need to get overexcited.”

“Get to the point, Crowley.”

“Got a lead on Squirrel and the monkey with a magic set. Thought you might want to know, though I’m sure I can manage without your brilliant contribution…”

Sam frowns at the desk in front of him. “What _kind_ of a lead?”

“Abaddon’s goons are onto something, that’s for sure. They’re converging. Swarming like flies on the proverbial.”

“And what makes you think it’s them?”

“Just a hunch,” Crowley says, and Sam raises his eyes to the ceiling, ready to hang up. Then: “I can feel it, alright, Moose? There’s power. Same kind there was in that mansion of his. Radiating out from the place like a bloody beacon.”

“Sounds like a trap,” Sam offers.

“Well of _course_ it’s a trap,” Crowley says, exasperated. Then he brightens. Sam can just hear the shit-eating grin in his voice. “Question is, who for?”

\----

Cas joins him at a gas station outside of nowheresville, New Mexico. Waiting for him costs Sam a couple hours, but he doesn’t see himself being much use against Sinclair’s trickery without backup.

Not that he’s come unarmed. Abaddon’s minions might have snatched the Sinclair file, but it isn’t as if those were the only examples of his handiwork in the bunker. Master of Spells was a serious deal, came with a lot of influence. Before Sinclair got himself kicked out, he wove his ideas right into the fabric of the Men of Letters organisation. Sam suspects he was planning a takeover someday.

But when he left his ideas, he forewarned anyone who might have to deal with him in future. He left an impression of how his mind worked—plus a couple useful pieces of magic, with instructions for the layman, or at least the Layman of Letters. So, Sam has a couple things up his sleeve. Or around his neck, in the case of the amulet he’s wearing tucked under his shirt. It’s a sight charm, designed to help the Men of Letters better perceive invisible monsters. Honestly, Sam has no proof that it’ll help him see invisible doorways, too—or even that it works at all—but he figures it has to be worth a shot.

There’s a binding spell, too. Not that it’s gonna be much use if he comes up against Sinclair again. Whatever knowledge Sam’s managed to glean from the bunker’s records, it’s nothing to a lifetime of dedicated study. 

But he keeps remembering his dreams—the ones where Dean is a whirl of movement soaked in blood; the ones where he looks at Sam like a stranger—and so he brings it with him anyway.

He’s going over it one last time, checking the words on the page against the ones in his head, when Cas pulls up in his ridiculous car.

“Shall we go?” is all he says, not even getting out the driver’s seat to stretch. Cas plays human more often than not these days—resting, hugging, drinking beers and watching movies—but right now he’s all business. The solemnity on his face makes it strange, an old ghost of inhumanity from down the years.

Sam nods shortly, already has the key in the car door when his cell pipes up again

“You might want to stay out of this one,” Crowley warns him. Not even a pause for a sarcastic greeting; things must be serious. “The excrement has hit the proverbial bloody fan over here. And I do mean bloody.”

Sam just hangs up. He catches Cas’s eye, jerks his chin in a _come on_ motion. “Yeah,” he says. “We better move.”

\----

Sam doesn’t know which of his nightmares he’s looking at, right now.

This place isn’t a battlefield anymore. It’s a graveyard. No: a slaughterhouse, after the slaughter is done and before the clean-up starts. There are bodies. There’s blood. The air is thick with the smell of it. Demon blood everywhere, too much of it to even be a thing that tempts him. It’s beyond that. Beyond disgust, even. Pools of it, still in the silence. Which is heavy, tangible enough that Sam feels like he’s breathing it in, like it’s clagging up his throat and stealing his oxygen. 

There are no birds. No insects. Not even a breath of wind.

Dean stands upright in the middle of it, First Blade in one hand, something else in the other. He doesn’t move. Sam can’t even tell if he’s breathing. He’s covered in blood, his clothes soaked in it, drying to brown and turning stiff at the edges.

The blood coating everything makes Dean and the Blade both part of the same sanguine whole, blots out the line where man ends and weapon begins. And in the other hand—Sam blinks as he finally realises what Dean is holding. 

It’s Abaddon’s _head_. Tendrils of blood-thick red hair tangle around his fingers. The whole tableau, it’s like an illustration from some old book in the bunker’s library. Perseus and Medusa, but this time both of them with killing stares.

Because the look in Dean’s eyes—Sam _knows_ it. 

Not because he’s seen it too often—though he has, on other people; once would be too often—but because he’s spent years trying to visualize it in front of bathroom mirrors. Trying to imagine himself out of his own image, see what he might’ve looked like when he wasn’t himself anymore. The vacancy, the creeping animation of the shadows. 

It’s the same, and it’s not. There’s nothing _else_ in there, animating Dean’s face, his body. This is self pared away, down to the brute parts, the factory settings. Everything else discarded: the remembering, the familiar faces, the distinction between _save_ and _kill_.

The vacant look turns, slow but not exactly deliberate. Like it’s being pulled in by gravity. 

It finds Sam and fastens on him.

And then Dean is coming in his direction. 

Sam can’t move. That look has done it, turned him to stone. The words of the binding spell stick in his throat.

Then Cas steps in front of him and it’s like someone hits Play on the whole world, and Sam’s heart starts beating again and he can speak. 

There’s a burst of white light and power, Cas’s face creased up with the strain of it, a great fist-punch of air that should be enough to knock Dean on his ass but—doesn’t. 

He keeps coming at them, and that isn’t murder in his eyes, it’s _nothing_ , and that’s worse. Sam has to fight to keep his voice steady, almost loses his thread as Dean jabs out with an elbow and then Cas is the one on his ass on the bloody ground, eyes wide, a sound like all the breath being knocked out of him.

Sam is losing his words and he’s gonna die, that smug bastard Sinclair is going to let his own brother kill him and he doesn’t even know what _for_ —

He should fight back but he can’t look at Dean, he doesn’t want to see that absence, he _won’t_ see it, he fixes his eyes somewhere past Dean, in the distance—

A door opens out of nowhere. 

Sinclair. 

Sinclair, looking—pissed as hell, actually, which makes Sam blink in surprise. Crowley’s head emerges from behind him

Sinclair mutters something. Sam isn’t close enough to hear it, just to figure out that Sinclair isn’t happy about saying it. 

Crowley looks to have the guy at the business end of an angel blade (which, who knows where that came from). He smiles unpleasantly. “I’m the King of Hell, you little scrote. Now give me what’s mine.”

Sinclair makes a gesture, says something, and suddenly the rest of Dean matches the blankness in his eyes. He goes still, face slackening, the First Blade dropping from his right hand. The hand holding Abaddon’s head by the hair loosens, too, but Dean’s fingers catch in it and it lolls there for a long moment before thudding to the floor. For the first time, Sam registers the surprised look on its face.

He doesn’t have long to look. There’s a burst of light from the doorway, reddish and flickering, unhealthy. Crowley draws the angel blade out of Sinclair’s body. He’s made some distinctly non-angelic alterations to the thing, obviously.

He walks off before Sinclair is even done crumpling to the ground, and makes his way towards them. 

Sam helps Cas to his feet. Stands there uncertainly. 

He thinks about walking up to Dean, touching his arm, his shoulder, just to be sure he’s really there. He doesn’t. 

Crowley retrieves the First Blade, dripping blood and gore, from the floor. He gives it an offended look before tucking it into his suit jacket. Then he looks at Dean, shakes his head, withdraws a slim paper folder from somewhere else in there.

“He’s no use to anyone like this,” he grumbles. Then he brightens, shrugs. “Well, thanks for the pest control, Squirrel. Maybe you’ll get another go with your new toy next time I need some vermin taking care of.” His expression turns thoughtful. “Or maybe not. Might be more trouble than it’s worth, keeping the bloody thing around. Anyway.” He tosses the folder at Sam, nods in Dean’s direction. “Here you go, Moose. Good luck sorting that mess out.” 

Sam catches it reflexively. Opens his mouth around a question, but Crowley already has his hand in the air, ready to snap his fingers and disappear.

“You planned this,” Sam realises. “That warning—you knew we’d come right away.”

Crowley just gives him a look, like, _really, you’re just getting this now?_

“I just don’t get why,” Sam says. 

Crowley shrugs. “Squirrel’s wizard friend needed distracting,” he says. “And he _does_ enjoy a good family drama. Did, I should say.” He smirks, then, indicates the folder with a jerk of his head. “Happy reading.”

Sam scowls. “Yeah, I don’t buy it,” he says. “Abaddon’s dead. Why the hell did you help us?”

But he’s already looking at empty air.

\----

They lock Dean in the basement, back at the bunker. Honestly, Sam expected trouble on the ride back. He had Cas sit in the backseat beside Dean, ready to try and restrain him—not that he was sure either of them had a chance, if Dean decided to make a break for it. But when Dean came out of his catatonia—gradual, like a drug wearing off—he didn’t go berserker again. Just sat there, not looking at either of them.

It was creepy, actually, the way his eyes looked to be tracking something not inside the car. Like what was right in front of him wasn’t even there, like whatever else he was looking at, right through the layers of distance and reality, was more important. Closer.

The thought bothered Sam on some level deeper than immediate danger. It made him tighten his fingers around the steering wheel and put his foot down harder.

And now Dean sits in the middle of the basement, shackled with the same demon-proof cuffs they used for Crowley, because he managed to knock Cas right over like he was just another dude, and they don’t know what the fuck could do that, and there’s the Mark on his arm glowing like a hot coal, and Sam isn’t taking any chances.

Dean still hasn’t said anything.

\----

He’s bone-tired, sore-eyed and aching, but Sam sits himself down in the library with the folder Crowley handed him and a mug of the strongest coffee he can stand.

It’s cold, still untouched, by the time he’s done reading.

Sinclair was fastidious in his record-keeping, Sam has to give him that. Probably thought of himself as a real man of science, far as that goes where magic’s concerned. The style is kind of weird—more like a personal journal than the dry, factual register the Men of Letters went for—but there are careful records of everything he did to Dean. Scraps of info about the Mark and First Blade, the way they make the bearer into a killer—a perfect weapon, under the right circumstances. 

A spell to drain willpower, which makes sense of Dean’s weird catatonic state on the battlefield, at least. And another, which takes Sam half the morning to make sense of, and which leaves him with a sinking feeling that just won’t quit. 

His Sumerian is kind of ropey, but he gets the gist of it.

The gist of it is _doubt_.

\----

“A spell like this is a kind of damage to the soul,” Cas tells him. “I can try to heal it, like any other wound.”

He’s watching Sam’s face carefully, like he’s looking out for sparks of inappropriate hope, ready with apologies to squash them. 

“What’s the _but_?” Sam asks.

Cas squints at him.

He sighs, already resigned. “There’s a _but_ coming. Always is.”

“The spell is rooted in what’s already there. It wouldn’t have been able to take hold if Dean didn’t already have doubts about—”

“Me,” Sam finishes, the word an inevitability, dropping into place.

Cas regards him, opaque. “Not what I was going to say.”

\----

Dean is asleep when Sam enters the basement. It’s the first time Sam has seen him sleeping since they got him back—since before that, if he thinks back. Their usual pattern’s been reversed, lately: Dean awake and alone in the library while Sam lies in bed and tries to drown out the sound of his pacing with music, the light from his iPod screen hurting his eyes in the dark.

Honestly, it bugged him at the time, felt like Dean was stealing his late-night solitude away along with all the other things he’d taken. Maybe it was dumb to feel that way, but he couldn’t help it.

Healing is tiring business for everybody, by the look of things. Cas is conked out in one of the empty bedrooms upstairs, and Dean sits slumped forward, his head on the table. He stirs when Sam slides the heavy door closed, and for the briefest of moments, Sam could swear that’s actually his brother looking back at him.

The blankness closes in so fast he doubts himself. But Dean’s in there, he knows it. Remnants of him, anyway. Frightened, cockroach-scuttling from the light.

He doesn’t know what to say, so he stands there, watches Dean’s face.

“You want something to eat?” he asks, at length. Seems like a safe topic.

It occurs to him that the way he’s acting, it’s like trying to tame a wild animal. Share. Show it he can be trusted. Man, he’s like Princess Leia with the Ewok in _Return of the Jedi._

And there’s an echo somewhere in his head saying, _yeah, your hair’s just about long enough, want me to braid it for you, Princess?_ but in the room there’s only silence.

\----

Dean doesn’t answer him. At all.

Sam takes down trays of food, chips and sandwiches, sometimes soup with a plastic kiddie spoon. Sometimes it disappears, and mostly it doesn’t, and Dean never speaks. Cas carries on with the healing, frowns and says he _knows_ he’s making progress, but Dean doesn’t talk to him, either.

He goes for days in silence. A week. Longer.

Sam talks to him every day, anyway.

\----

“I know this isn’t real,” Dean says to him, one morning, in a voice like a rusted hinge.

Sam’s standing on the threshold, balancing a plastic mug of coffee—tepid—and a plastic bowl of cereal that Dean won’t eat, and hearing his brother speak to him makes him start, slop milk and Lucky Charms over the side of the bowl.

Dean doesn’t flinch. He sounds resigned. “I know it’s not really you.”

Sam turns and leaves the basement.

\----

By the time he comes back down to clean up, it’s afternoon and the milk is on the turn, the sour smell of it catching in his throat. Dean watches him and doesn’t say anything.

His face is something other than blank, now. Sam tries to place what and can’t say that he likes it. It’s a lot of things, he decides, in the end. Calculating. Fearful. Tired. Something else, something Sam wouldn’t have been able to distinguish _from_ blankness, before, because it was just the default.

Dean looks sad.

Sam shakes himself, carries on mopping up, tramps up the stairs to toss a wad of soaked paper towels in the trashcan. Best to concentrate on the things he has a hope of fixing.

Hope. He sighs. Ain’t that the thing?

He’s read the file. He knows what Sinclair did, knows about the monsters wearing Sam’s face that he dangled in front of Dean and had him kill. 

He’s been telling himself that it doesn’t mean anything. That Dean knew the difference, of course he did.

He realises his hands are shaking.

Sam draws his foot back to kick at the trashcan; thinks better of it and aborts the movement. Drops into a chair and lets his head sink into his hands and stays there.

\----

“You know how I know it’s not really you, Sammy?”

Dean’s voice still sounds disused. Yesterday’s couple sentences were the most he’s spoken in weeks. Longer, maybe. Sam still has no idea how long he was trapped in Sinclair’s house, but judging by the reports, it was way more time than passed out here in the real world. 

When Dean speaks, it’s toneless; a recitation, not a revelation. “It looks like you,” he goes on. “That’s how.”

Sam stills in the doorway. Honestly, he’s not sure this version of Dean, distant and affectless and appraising and not quite _there_ , is somebody he wants to engage with. He’s down to the bones with exhaustion. They all are, and the bones are doubt and suspicion and fear.

But they’ve doubted each other for years, and when did that ever make a difference?

He turns, fractionally. “You’re saying I don’t look like me?”

“Not anymore.” Dean slumps forward in his chair. He’s getting too thin, all unkempt beard and hollow eyes that trap the shadows and hold them. 

It makes him look more human. Sam wonders if he’s a shitty person, for thinking that.

Dean shrugs, then. “ _They_ always look like you,” he says. “Don’t gotta have your face. They just do.”

“What are you saying?” Sam asks, frowning, but Dean is fading out again, and he already knows he won’t get an answer.

\----

When Sam’s life was well and truly in the crapper, post-Ruby, he actually looked the Twelve Steps up online. Never told anybody about it. Not like actually going to something like that would’ve been practicable, what with the moving around and the necessary lies and all the more brutally efficient methods they had at their disposal.

He got stuck on them, anyway. First he stumbled over the idea of a God who gave a crap about individual little mortal lives. Then over Dean. 

Because how the hell are you supposed to _make a searching and fearless moral inventory of yourself_ when your wrongs keep getting stolen from you? Dean holds them out in front of him, says, _Here, all yours, check it out_ , then tucks them away in his own pockets, stones to drown with.

Sinclair talked about the Blade like a drug, in his reports. Sam wonders if Dean feels the same way he did, then. Not likely, he guesses.

He wonders what Dean would see, if he did try looking at himself through that lens, sorting through all the shame and all the fuckups. How many layers he’d have to go through before he actually got to his own.

Cas said the spell could only work on doubt that was there already. Must’ve been easy for Sinclair to get his claws in, Sam thinks. Dean has doubted him for years, maybe forever. Sam could never get through to him lucid. Now, with visions of fake-Sams swimming in his brother’s head, echoing lies at him from every side, what chance does he have?

\----

“You know, you could try talking to me,” he finds himself saying into the silence of the basement.

Dean looks at him like he’s grown an extra head.

“You could ask me something. Something only I would know. You could try figuring it out.” Sam sounds angry, he can hear his voice tight with rage in his own ears, but he’s horrified by the hot prickle of tears behind his eyes. “You won’t even try,” he says. “Why won’t you _try_?”

Dean frowns, and it’s the closest thing to a real expression Sam has gotten out of him since Sinclair’s mansion. He finds himself holding his breath.

Then Dean shakes his head, a movement so tiny it’s barely perceptible, and lapses, eyes fixed on a spot on the far wall.

\----

He’s still having the nightmares.

Dean’s eyes are empty in them, usually. He doesn’t say much. Sam tries reaching out to him and taking his arm, tries shoving him so that he stumbles, tries talking until he’s blue in the face. Tries walking away.

Except once, when Sam shakes his head in the face of Dean’s non-reactions, sighs out, in frustration, “It’s like you don’t wanna come back.”

Dean’s eyes move, then. They find Sam’s. They are dark, depthless.

“’S easier this way, Sammy,” he says. His smile is weak, hardly-there. “I’m tired, man. I can’t do it.”

“Can’t what?” Sam asks, and Dean just shrugs. Sam turns away in frustration, ready to stalk off, when the clatter of a chair falling over calls him back. 

He turns, blinks. Dean isn’t there anymore.

Dean isn’t there anymore, and neither is Sam. 

There’s something soft under him, and he’s curled in on himself uncomfortably tight. His joints hurt. He’s awake.

The noise is real, though. It’s coming from downstairs. From the basement.

\----

Dean is on his feet, upright as he can be with his hands still cuffed to the table. He’s shaking hard enough that Sam can see it from the doorway, a sheen of sweat covering his face, plastering hair to his forehead.

There’s something on his arm. Not the glow of the Mark, though it’s in the same spot. Blood, leaking through Dean’s shirt.

Dean’s muttering something, low, words slurring into each other. Sam has to strain to hear it. 

“Gone,” he’s saying, “gone _gonegone_ , fuck, Crowley—knew there was a reason I hated that fucker—how’d destroy the fucking Blade? How’d he—gone— _ah_!” 

It’s a sound like he’s just been punched in the gut, and Sam is at his side in a second, thoughts of keeping a safe distance all forgotten. And shit, that’s kind of a lot of blood. Running down Dean’s arm, between his fingers, sinking into the creases of his hands. 

Sam blinks and for a moment it’s the bloodied figure from his dreams, from the battlefield, standing in front of him, and he’s paralysed by the memory of a hundred useless attempts at saving his brother.

Dean’s gaze catches Sam’s, and holds there. 

The look is fearful, is confused, is pained. Is _Dean_. Not the figure from Sam’s dreams. Because the Blade that figure held is gone, and the Mark that spoke to it—that’s gone, too, like one can’t exist without the other. The spreading bloodstain on Dean’s shirtsleeve tells him that. And Dean is still looking at him.

Figures, that pain would be the thing to tunnel down to the core of him, past all the layers of misdirection, the hall of funhouse mirrors that Sinclair installed in his head. 

“Sammy?” he says, breathless. “That you?”

This is the moment, and Sam can’t miss it. He has to think fast. And he has to stop that bleeding, so he talks while he grabs Ruby’s knife out of his belt and cuts Dean’s shirtsleeve out the way, strips off his own shirt to press over the bleeding.

He gets a good look at the wound first. It’s like something just ripped off the skin, where the Mark was. Sucked it out of existence and left a hole in Dean, too.

“Yeah,” Sam tells him, “it’s me.” He swallows, struggles for a way to connect, to keep Dean with him. “I know why you didn’t think I’d come. I get why you didn’t think I was really here, I do.”

Dean blinks at him. “You do?” He’s starting to look doubtful.

“Yeah,” Sam says. 

And then, he thinks, yeah, he just has to go for it. No bullshit, no sticking to the safe topics, no saying what he thinks Dean wants to hear. He wants to make a connection, he’s gonna have to be honest here. It hasn’t always worked in the past, hasn’t come off the way he meant it—but maybe this time. Maybe this time, because it’s not about punishing anybody, it’s not even about trying to make things right between them. It’s about one thing, period: make Dean see that he’s real.

He takes a breath. And then, “Don’t get me wrong,” he says. “This isn’t sympathy. I’m still pissed at you.”

Dean’s face is still screwed up in pain, but Sam can see the doubt clearing, the readiness to fight—honest-to-goodness fight, the yelling-and-furniture-throwing kind, not the killing kind—taking its place. 

“Yeah,” Dean mutters. “ _That_ figures.”

Sam ignores him. “I know what Sinclair did to you,” he goes on. Steady pressure on the wound, hands careful. “All those monsters with my face, the doubt spell, the First Blade. It would’ve made anyone a little nuts, Dean. I get that.” He pauses. “But the thing is, you already doubted me. You always have. Every bad thing I’ve ever done, every bad thing that’s happened to me—you take them all for yourself, because you don’t trust me with them. I bet every time you killed one of those things that looked like me, it felt like putting one of them down. One moment when I could’ve turned into—” He breaks off. “Well. You know.”

Dean is looking at him a little wild-eyed, now. His breathing sounds like it hurts. “Yeah, I get it, Sammy. Little less pop psychology, little more first aid here?” 

It’s strained. It sounds like he’s saying _stop_.

“Here,” Sam says. “Put your hand on that.” 

He reaches for Ruby’s knife again—placed carefully on the edge of the table, out of Dean’s reach, because Sam’s been an addict and he isn’t _that_ dumb—and begins to cut a strip off the bottom of his shirt to serve as a makeshift bandage. 

Then, he goes on. “So, yeah, Dean,” he says. “I can see why it’s easier that way. Doubt’s easier than hope, any day.” He leans in, begins to wind the strip of fabric around Dean’s arm, securing the pad over the bleeding Mark in place.

Hope. He hopes to hell he knows what he’s doing with this.

Hope’s irrational. Hope is stupid. Hope springs up like a weed where it has no right to exist. 

This is a dumb idea. An irrational one. He should be dismissing it. It has no right to exist.

“So yeah, it’d be easier if the real me wasn’t real anymore. If you could just stop being afraid of what was gonna happen to me, of what that said about you. So you stopped believing in me.” He finishes trying off the bandage, sits back, breathes in deep. “But there’s another way of doing that, too.”

And he puts the knife and Dean’s hand.

Dean looks at it like he expects it to bite him.

“Come on,” Sam says to him. “Don’t tell me it never occurred to you. You get me out the way, you can finally stop carrying a two-man load of guilt. You could just let me go. You really never wondered what that would be like?” He pauses. Lets Dean stare at him for a moment, lets the idea sink in. “Or.”

Dean’s gaze is still locked on the knife in his hand. He meets Sam’s eyes slowly. The effort it takes is visible. “The hell, Sam?”

“Or,” Sam continues, “you could just let _it_ go. Let me worry about me and worry about yourself for once, because God knows I’m not the only one with issues here. Everything that’s happened to me, everything I’ve done—it’s not yours. That’s why you can’t bury it. Give it back to me, Dean. Let me help fix you. Trust me, just this once.”

Dean’s mouth works. He says nothing.

On impulse, Sam gets out of his seat. Leans over the table, down low. Even with the chains, Dean could cut his throat in one clean swipe, if he wanted. 

“You know,” he says, nodding at the bandage on Dean’s arm. “I’d bet there’s still some mojo left in that thing. If you did it, what’s the bet it could turn that little magic knife into something like the First Blade? Same crime, same consequences, right? Maybe it’d scratch the itch a little. Believe me, I know how bad the magic DTs can get. Might help.”

Dean just makes this sound, all of the air going out of him, like he’s giving up. And for a moment Sam thinks, _fuck, fuck_ , he really was dumb to hope, this isn’t gonna work, this is it.

Then Dean slumps forward onto the table, and the knife drops from his hand and skitters away across the floor.

Sam exhales. Watches. Dean doesn’t move.

“Dean?” he says, cautious, after a moment.

“Fuck you, Sammy,” Dean croaks out, without lifting his head from the table. 

Sam decides it counts as a victory.

\----

“You sure you don’t want out of those?” Sam jerks his head to indicate the cuffs, now attached to the leg of the camp cot Dean is sitting on.

It’s been hours, and Dean’s still here, still lucid, even if he’s not saying much. He winces as the bandaged part of his arm catches on his shirt.

Cas says he can’t heal that up. It’s not a regular injury; it’s too strong for him, with his stolen grace. Right now, he’s standing silent before the doorway, watching the whole scene with a wondering expression, like he’s afraid Dean might evaporate away before their eyes.

Dean shakes his head. “Nah,” he says. “I’m good, Sammy. Five star.”

The façade is going back up, but Sam figures he can leave it be for now. It’s paper-thin anyway—and besides, he’s way too tired to deal with anymore of what’s on the other side tonight. 

But, for the first time in who knows how long, he thinks—maybe tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow they’ll get somewhere.

He’s spent so damn long thinking he was all out of hope. It’s weird, finding that there’s still a little store of it there, right in the depths of him. That maybe it’s enough to share.

Sam fetches blankets from upstairs, pillows from his bedroom. They don’t have a spare camp cot, so he spreads the duvet from the spare bed out beneath him. Not like his back is going to notice another night of abuse, anyway.

When Dean notices what he’s doing, he protests, “You don’t gotta do this, Sammy.”

“I know,” Sam tells him. “But I’m not leaving you alone.”

“Yeah, that’s great, maybe you can hold my hand when I get scared of the dark.”

“Jerk,” Sam says, and then turns his head away before he can get stuck on Dean’s almost-smile. He bites his lip before continuing. “Just so we’re clear,” he says, “I don’t forgive you.”

Dean blinks at him. 

Sam doesn’t know what the look in his eyes is, exactly. If it’s anger, sorrow, fear. He hopes it’s the last. You can’t feel fear if you have no hope.

“I don’t forgive you,” he repeats, “But I will. I know I will.” 

It’s the closest thing he has to a peace offering. So he holds it out, and waits, and hopes that Dean will take it.


End file.
